A Green Bay Tree

by Margaret James

  ‘You're his best friend. I'm his sister.’ Lalage's huge, dark eyes flashed. ‘He wouldn't impoverish us!’

  ‘But he loves her. Or thinks he does.’ Alex sighed. ‘He might think her welfare is far more important than ours.’

  Lalage's eyes narrowed. ‘He won't tell her,’ she said. ‘He won't ruin you and me. He loves us, too.’

  * * * *

  Inexplicably, Lyddy Searle seemed dismayed rather than delighted by Rebecca's news. Calmly, she poured out tea. Carefully, she cut the cake. ‘So,’ she said, handing her niece a plate. ‘Mr Darrow has asked you to marry him.’

  ‘Yes, he has!’ Rebecca was cross now. ‘Aunt Lyddy, aren't you pleased? I thought you'd be thrilled.’

  ‘Did you?’ Lyddy's pallid face became even more pale. ‘Well, I'll admit I'm surprised. Weren't you?’

  Rebecca shrugged. ‘In a way,’ she said. ‘But in another way, I expected it. Or something like it.’

  ‘Like it?’ Lyddy's eyes grew wide. Her face was ashen now. ‘Rebecca, it was marriage he offered. Wasn't it?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Rebecca frowned. ‘Aunt, I'm not sure I understand you. Or if I want to.’

  ‘My dear child, you say he asked you to marry him. Was he quite explicit? Or did he wrap a sordid suggestion in fine words?’

  ‘No, Aunt! Nothing like that.’ Rebecca smiled. ‘Marry me. That's what he said. Could anything be plainer?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘He gave me time to consider, too.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Do you?’ Rebecca took Lyddy's hand. ‘My dear, dear aunt,’ she cried, ‘I know how much you care about me. All my life you've watched over me. Nursed me. Taught me. My own mother could not have loved me more. Nor been as gentle and wise a friend, as you have been to me.

  ‘So I hope that now, grown to womanhood, I can judge a character? That I can tell a charlatan from an honourable man? That I know the difference between right and wrong?’

  ‘I hope you do.’ Lyddy sniffed. ‘Does Mr Darrow?’

  ‘Yes!’ Rebecca searched Lyddy's face. ‘He's a good man,’ she said. ‘He's kind. He's honest. He's plain–spoken. He's never suggested anything improper. He's never, by word, look or deed, offended me. Oh, Aunt! Dear Aunt! Won't you wish me happiness?’

  ‘Well.’ Pursing her lips, Lyddy did not know what to say.

  ‘I know you've never wanted to marry,’ went on Rebecca, now in full flow. ‘But I do! I want children of my own. I want to be a wife. I want a man's — a man's company.’

  ‘Then can't you find a man of your own class?’ Lyddy met Rebecca's eyes. ‘Let it be known you wish to marry. I'll put it about you've a mind to wed. There'll be men queueing from here to Snow Hill!

  ‘Becky, there's Matthew Harris, the widower. He's a rich man. Henry Prescott. David Kay. If you don't want anyone in the toy trade, there's John Graham — ’

  ‘The typefounder?’

  ‘Yes. He'd take you tomorrow! Then again, there's James Ryeland. He always looks at you in chapel. I tell you now — his mind cannot be on the word of God for more than five minutes together while you are by! Michael Allen, George Curtis, Francis Holland — ’

  ‘I want Mr Darrow.’ Rebecca bit her lower lip. ‘No one but him.’

  ‘He wants to marry you, too. Or so he says.’ Lyddy sniffed again. ‘Or does he merely want you in his bed?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘In spite of his fine words and splendid offers, does he simply want your virginity? Forgive me for speaking so bluntly, but I feel I must. Does he want to use you? Then, when he's tired of you, will he throw you away?’

  ‘Aunt, it's not like that! Mr Darrow has never even hinted — ’

  ‘Ah, but perhaps he has. Perhaps, Becky, he has made himself perfectly plain. You, unfortunately, have not had the wit to take the hint.’

  Seeing Rebecca's colour rise, Lyddy spoke more gently now. ‘Becky,’ she whispered, ‘they're not like us. Their ways are not our ways. A gentleman's sweet words are like the perfume of roses. Pleasant to the senses, beguiling to the heart, but worth nothing. Nothing at all.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ Rebecca plucked at the skirt of her gown. ‘You have a very low opinion of my good sense,’ she murmured. ‘You think me a fool, and Mr Darrow a brute.’ But then her eyes flashed. ‘You're so wrong!’ she cried. ‘He's not a seducer. He's not a wretch. He's not that kind of man!’

  ‘All men are that kind of man!’ Lyddy was almost in tears. ‘Becky, it's so. They take what they can get. They don't care if they break a woman's heart!

  ‘That's not the end of it, either. If a man errs, it's nothing. But if a woman strays, she can be sure other men will punish her. Will make quite certain she suffers, to the very end of her days.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Rebecca glared. ‘You've never married. You've — now I shall speak bluntly — you've never even had knowledge of a man! What do you know of the breaking of hearts, or inequality of punishment?

  ‘My dear aunt, I know my grandfather was a harsh man, was harder on you than you deserved — but all men are not like that. Consider, too, that despite his stern nature, my grandfather always looked after his kith and kin. As for my own father — he might have abandoned my mother, but he did marry her. Didn't he?’

  Lyddy sighed. ‘Did you give Mr Darrow an answer?’ she enquired.

  ‘No. I explained. He gave me time to consider.’

  ‘Then consider, child. Consider well. Remember, either way he wins. If he seduces you, he has his pleasure and may walk away. If he marries you, everything you own becomes his.’ Lyddy rose to her feet. She lit a candle, taking the flame from one fluttering on the table at her side. ‘I'm going to my bed.’

  * * * *

  Groping for her clock, Lyddy turned the dial towards her. The rays of a full moon lit up the hands. Three o'clock in the morning. She'd lain awake five whole hours.

  She got out of bed and went into Rebecca's room. Gently, she shook her awake.

  ‘Aunt? What is it?’ Rebecca started out of her dream. ‘What's the matter? Is the factory afire?’

  ‘I want to talk to you.’ Pulling her shawl close, Lyddy sat down on the bed. ‘Sit up now, and listen.’

  ‘Can't we talk in the morning?’ Rebecca frowned. ‘Aunt, it's so late! Can't it — ’

  ‘No. It won't wait. It must be now, while I have the courage to speak.’ Lyddy took Rebecca's hands in hers. ‘You see, child, there are things you ought to know.’

  ‘What things?’ Still half asleep, Rebecca pulled one hand free. She rubbed her eyes. ‘Oh, Aunt! What — ’

  ‘About you. About Mr Darrow. Mr Lowell, too.’

  ‘Mr Lowell?’ Rebecca stared. ‘My dear aunt, Mr Lowell is nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Listen to me, dear,’ said Lyddy, gently. ‘Listen well.’

  Chapter 11

  Monday morning was a cold, sullen dawn. The sun had risen with as much reluctance as the hundreds of factory workers now scurrying about the great industrial town, hastening to their various employments.

  Rising early, Rebecca looked out of her window and saw the day was wet and overcast. A dirty rain fell steadily against the panes, each droplet containing its own speck of soot which would eventually dry, suspended in the shape of a tear, upon the glass.

  ‘Are you awake, Miss Searle? Oh! You're up already.’ Rebecca's little maid, bustling in with a jug of hot water and a dish of early morning tea, looked curiously at Rebecca's ashen face. She saw her mistress's eyes were heavy, and smudged with purple shadows. ‘Not a very nice day, ma'am,’ she ventured, staring still.

  ‘No indeed, Esther.’ Taking the dish of tea, Rebecca sipped gratefully. ‘You may go now,’ she said. ‘Help my aunt make the breakfast. I shall dress myself today.’

  Rebecca washed, then put on her clothes. Awkwardly, for without Esther's help she could not manage the back very well, she braided and pinned her hair. Then she went down to have breakfast with her aunt.
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  Her aunt? Yes, Lyddy was still her aunt. Rebecca could not start calling her by another name now. After all, Lyddy was still the same shy, retiring, unobtrusive soul. Still the very model of a spinster, of a poor relation. Of course, as far as anyone else was concerned, Rebecca and Lyddy would always be niece and aunt.

  Taking her seat, Rebecca smiled encouragingly. Her cordiality would, she hoped, show Lyddy that the revelations of the early morning had not altered her feelings of gratitude, of respect, of love. ‘Did you sleep?’ she asked, carefully, kindly.

  ‘A little.’ Steadily, Lyddy poured tea. ‘Did you?’

  ‘I dozed.’ Rebecca broke some bread. ‘Not a very nice day,’ she added, reiterating the observations of her maid. ‘Cold, and damp.’

  ‘Yes.’ Evidently relieved that Rebecca was not disposed to be sharp, Lyddy nibbled some toast.

  * * * *

  After Lyddy had finished her story and gone back to her room, Rebecca lay awake, thinking. By morning, she had made up her mind.

  She could never marry Ellis Darrow. She hated the very idea of being married to the man who, as a child, had jeered at and mocked poor Lyddy.

  Her other self told her Ellis had been a mere boy. That he had grown up to become a kind, sensible and considerate man. ‘All children are cruel and thoughtless,’ this other self said. But then a picture of two sniggering, spiteful brats, gawping and sneering from the safety of the hayloft, forced its way into her mind yet again. The scene had etched itself into her brain. Burned into her soul.

  People do not change, she thought. The child must always become the man. Ellis was still cold–hearted, mean– spirited. But, as an adult, he'd learned to hide his true nature. Beneath a thin veneer of good manners and fine phrasing, he was a brute after all.

  As for Alex Lowell — one had only to glance at him to see the sort of brat he must have been. Sneering, prurient, censorious, mean. The pale, blond gentleman she had met in Ellis Darrow's study was everything Rebecca despised in men. To think that idle fop was her brother!

  One might know a man by his friends. Alex Lowell was Ellis Darrow's dearest friend. The case was proven.

  But then Rebecca thought of Ellis himself. Who had told her only yesterday that he loved her. He had meant it, too. She'd have staked her life on that.

  * * * *

  Rebecca finished her breakfast. Stepping into the scullery, she put on her thick, frieze cloak. She slid her feet into wooden pattens. Quickly, she made her way across the cobblestones, clacking across the wide expanse of courtyard where black, sooty rainwater splashed and ran into puddles.

  Pushing open the door of the big workshop, she entered the familiar, vaulted cavern. She made her way along the benches. This was going to be a normal day, she decided. Smiling and nodding, she exchanged morning greetings with the men. Since the hammers and anvils were not yet busy, the noise was moderate, so she could stop and chat to her employees.

  ‘A rather nasty morning, Miss Searle.’ One of her best foremen, a master craftsman who had taken over the guidance and training of Jeremy Searle's three most promising apprentices, grinned at her. Then, directing one of the boys to get on with what his master had started, Peter Crewe followed Rebecca up the gangway. ‘Could I have a word or two?’ he asked, wiping his grimy hands on his leather apron. ‘If you could spare a minute, I'd be glad of your advice.’

  ‘Well, Peter?’ Rebecca was now in one of the workshops, where a couple of the newest apprentices were hard at work burnishing a boxful of the cut steel buttons for which Birmingham was famous. Remembering now that the foreman had an ailing wife, and observing his face was drawn and pinched with anxiety, she smiled kindly. ‘How is Mrs Crewe today?’ she asked. ‘Any better?’

  ‘She's mending, I think.’ Peter Crewe chewed his lower lip. ‘You and your aunt have been very thoughtful, sending over those jellies and jars of soup. The apothecary's medicine seems to do her good. As for cash — the friendly society's advanced us a dividend now, so we're not short.’

  ‘That's good.’ At the mention of the friendly society, Rebecca frowned. Theoretically a savings club which helped its members out in times of financial hardship, the society to which Peter Crewe and some of her other workmen belonged was a buzzing hive of radicals. A breeding ground for sedition. At meetings, the members read tracts and pamphlets to their fellow workers, then incited them to strike. To agitate for higher wages, to harrass and scheme against their employers. Peter Crewe would never have dared mention the friendly society to Jeremy Searle.

  Rebecca folded her hands. ‘Well then,’ she said, but rather less cordially now, ‘if there's anything I can do for you? Or your family?’

  ‘There is.’ Embarrassed now, for he was aware he'd made a blunder, Peter Crewe looked down at the floor. ‘Miss Searle, you've been kind already. You've done more for us and the children than we've any right to expect. But — they're building houses along Marlin's Walk. Where the spoil heaps used to be. Decent houses. Brick–built. Two rooms below, and two up one pair of stairs.’

  Glancing up, Peter Crewe met Rebecca's eyes. ‘Miss Searle, I've been in the housing club for three years now. I've saved fourteen pounds, so I can well afford repayments on a mortgage of a hundred.’

  ‘Which is what the Marlin's Walk houses will cost?’

  ‘Yes.’ Peter Crewe shuffled awkwardly. ‘I need another six pounds, for the deposit. I haven't got the money. But if my Jane had a decent house to live in, if we were out of that court where the water's always brackish and the damp makes her chest so bad — ’

  ‘I'll lend you six pounds. Of course I will.’ Rebecca smiled. ‘Tell the builder you'll take a house. You're right about that tenement — it is damp, and I don't doubt that contributes vastly to Mrs Crewe's indisposition. Come to the counting house at noon, and Henry shall give you the money.’

  ‘What about the repayments?’ Relieved and delighted, the foreman beamed. ‘I could afford thirty shillin’ a month, easy.’

  ‘I'll tell the clerk to take it out of your wages. But thirty shillings is too much. A florin a week will do. You expect to live long enough to clear the debt?’

  ‘I hope so, Miss Searle.’ Peter Crewe clasped Rebecca's hands. ‘Thank you, Miss. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  ‘My pleasure.’ Rebecca shook her head. If only her own problems could be so easily solved.

  Leaving the workshops, Rebecca walked into the yard again. That exchange with her foreman had soothed her. Being able to offer assistance had given her back her own self– esteem. Now, having made Peter Crewe happy, she felt a warm glow deep inside.

  She would, she thought, go and look over those new houses herself. If any of her other workmen asked for her help in buying one, she would certainly consider giving it. Close to the factory, convenient for the nearest school, a colony of Searle's workmen in Marlin's Walk would not be a bad thing at all. Perhaps she should buy a couple of houses herself, and rent them out? Her grandfather would have approved, she knew that.

  For, distrustful of workers’ clubs though he'd always been, Jeremy Searle had always been concerned for the welfare of his factory hands. He had impressed on his grand–daughter the fact that, as their employer, her interest in Searle's workforce should extend well beyond working hours and reach far outside the manufactory gates.

  As Rebecca stood on the cobbles, she gazed up at the sky. A sooty wind blew, and the sun was beginning to break through increasingly ragged clouds. It was a weary, feeble Birmingham sun, true enough. But its faint rays now illuminated a corner of the dirty courtyard, and made the windows in the house at the far end of the square sparkle. Rebecca went into her office, shut the door, and sat down. She would apply herself to the demands of what she was determined would be a normal day.

  Soon, as she'd anticipated, there was a tap on the door. Her first visitor was a wholesaler, wanting to re–negotiate the terms of an order for buckles. Together, he and Rebecca went through an established routine. The wholesaler aske
d the impossible, and Rebecca suggested he took his business elsewhere. Finally, they came to an agreement and shook hands over the deal.

  Then she was called over to a workshop to arbitrate on a dispute between two journeymen. As she made her way back to her office, one of the clerks from the counting house handed her some letters. ‘How many are absent today?’ she asked, as she glanced at her post.

  ‘Not many, Miss Searle. Only thirteen.’

  ‘That's quite enough.’ Rebecca pursed her lips. ‘The usual defaulters?’

  ‘More or less, Miss.’

  ‘Make me a list of their names. I'll see them all tomorrow, at eight o'clock sharp.’

  Monday morning. Saint Monday — upon which, since long before the time artisans had worked in urban factories, the more feckless labourers had traditionally kept holiday.

  That Monday, as on any other, dozens of workmen would have taken the day off, and in Rebecca's factory several labourers and at least two skilled craftsmen were absent from their benches.

  Tom Farrow, she supposed, would be down at the dog fight. Even now, he'd be pitting his own bloodthirsty cur against opposition from all over the county. George Holland was probably in bed with some drab, confident he could make up all the time lost on Monday, on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and still earn enough to pay for his beer and his whores. Perhaps, thought Rebecca, she should let these two go. Reliable and conscientious when they actually came to work, their cavalier attitude towards their employer was bound to infect the other men.

  Rebecca sorted through her paperwork, then went back into the factory. As she was berating an apprentice, telling him that if he spoilt his materials just once more he would most definitely leave her employ, she was called to her office again. A drayman, who had brought his load of bar iron into the factory yard, wanted her signature on the receipt.

  Rebecca sat down at her desk. She found a quill. With a pang, she realised Ellis had signed his last banker's draft with this very pen. She mended the point. She dipped it in the inkwell. She was about to sign her name and tell the man to take himself off — when she saw the price she was expected to pay.